Krista Kooks' Kitchen

Well, I don't know what the perception has been, up until now, of what type of kitchen I might be cooking in, but I'm here to show you...it's small, not technologically advanced, and overall pretty simple. I say that to encourage anyone who doesn't think they have what it takes to make anything exciting or fancy in their kitchen. You might be able to tell that the sous chef and I are actually in an apartment!

I show this next photo to show you just some of the spices that we have. I laugh at just how many we have as there is a rack here on the wall as well as spinning rack in the pantry.

You'll also notice from pictures above that I keep the front of the fridge free of clutter :) That said, you'll notice that what normal people put on the front of their fridge, I put on the sides. LOL! Of course, you can also see my favorite kitchen appliance in this picture; my Kitchen Aid Mixer.

I just like the following picture because of the Bistro sign :)

See our pantry below! It's super tiny, but it's really all we need. I like it because it makes me realize exactly what I have and doesn't allow me to buy too much thus causing me to forget about some things that I've purchased.

Voila! Below are all of my cookbooks! You can see the bog orange book sticking out like a sore thumb, and that is the one I've been making a lot of recipes from in the last few weeks.

Well, that's where the magic of Krista Kooks happens folks! I don't know what you might have expected, but, my hope is that you are surprised and that it comes as an encouragement for you to get into your kitchen and get to cooking or baking :)

What do you think?!

Country French Chicken Breasts

Well, it definitely doesn't take much for this easy recipe, but that's why I wanted to try it :) It's a recipe with only 6 ingredients for the whole dinner (or lunch)! You can find the recipe here from Liption Secrets. It uses one of the soup mixes to create a tasty chicken dinner.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!® Spread (or other butter you already have)
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 envelope Lipton® Recipe Secrets® Savory Herb with Garlic Soup Mix
1 cup water
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Hot cooked rice
4 lemon slices (optional)

Melt Spread in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat and brown chicken. Stir in Lipton® Recipe Secrets® Savory Herb with Garlic Soup Mix blended with water and lemon juice.

Reduce heat to low and simmer covered 10 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened and chicken is thoroughly cooked.

To serve, arrange chicken over hot rice and spoon sauce over chicken. Garnish, if desired, with lemon slices.

Pasta, Peas and Ricotta Fake-Bake

I know it's not a huge landmark just yet, but this is my 60th post! I'm looking forward to 100 and wondering what I should make to celebrate :)

I was getting ready to make (er, possibly go get) lunch the other day, and I persuaded myself into staying home and making lunch here. Smart move, right?! I already purchased the ingredients to make this recipe, so why not make it? This recipe came from Rachel Ray's Big Orange Book, and I thought it was really really tasty. I haven't been 'wowingly' impressed by each and every recipe in this cookbook, but this recipe was definitely WOW! So yummy!
Ingredients

salt
1/4 lb penne or rigatoni or whole wheat pasta
1 tablespoon EVOO
1 tablespoon butter
2 scallions, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup frozen peas
black pepper
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, 3 to 4 springs, finely chopped
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Directions
Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Salt the water, add in the pasta, and cook to al dente. Reserve 1/3 cup of the pasta cooking liquid before you drain the pasta.

Preheat the broiler.

Heat the EVOO and butter in a small or medium skillet. Add the scallions and garlic and saute for 3 to 4 minutes, then add in the peas and cook for 2 minutes to heat through. Season with salt, pepper, the lemon zest, and thyme. Add in the drained pasta and reserved cooking water to the skillet along with the ricotta and toss to combine; adjust the seasonings. Top the pasta with the grated cheese, and place the skillet under the broiler to brown 3 minutes.

This is a great meal for one, but I actually doubled the recipe when I made mine because I wanted some left over for my sous chef to take to work. Hopefully he's enjoying some right now! This recipe tastes great leftover, and you can definitely make this easily for yourself. Let me know what you think if you make this!

Potato Bundles

As promised, I'm providing you the recipe for those potato bundles you saw paired with my flank steak I made a while back. I originally saw these posted by Melissa, but, as you'll be able to tell, she originally got them from Pioneer Woman, who is coming out with a cookbook! Melissa slightly, not a lot, changed it from Pioneer Woman, and I think I changed it even more. I was really just looking for something that could be created from things we had in the kitchen :)

Here's what I did to adjust this for just the 2 of us:

Potato Bundles

Serves 2
2 whole Red Potatoes, diced small (1 per person)
1/4 to 1/3 of a Red Onion, diced small
2 Tbsp Butter (1 per bundle)
Splash of Heavy Cream for each bundle
Kosher Salt To Taste
Paprika To Taste
Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste
1/2 teaspoon of your preferred herb (I think we used cilantro)

Pile potatoes and onions on a square of foil. Add tablespoons butter to each foil packet. Splash on cream. Then sprinkle on salt, paprika, and black pepper. Sprinkle minced parsley over the top.
Wrap bundles tightly and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, or until extremely tender. Serve bundles right on the dinner plate.

These were delicious and a 'man-favorite!' Super easy and tasty.

Golden Chicken Nuggets

Are you seeing the similarity to these and Chick Fila?! I am! These are wonderfully delicious, kid-friendly and easy to make. There's only 4 ingredients! As I'm trying to clear out our pantry/fridge/freezer, I decide to used up more of our Lipton Recipe Secrets packs. Right on the box, you'll find the recipe for these easy to make chicken nuggets, but here is the recipe as well so that you can prepare for your trip to the grocery store.

I only needed about 3 chicken breasts to complete this recipe. If you do 4 chicken breasts, you might need a little more bread crumbs. And, speaking of bread crumbs, I decided to go somewhat healthier on my creations and use whole wheat bread crumbs! That's right; I put a healthy spin on these reputationally bad nuggets. I don't think they are so bad because these were baked chicken nuggets and not fried. Here they are all coated and about to go in the oven.

Oh, and how delicious they look after 15 minutes of baking! Dig-in for some homemade chicken nuggets. Oh...and these are husband friendly, too :)

Spring-Summer Ziti

It's cleaning out the pantry time in the Krista Kooks household! I had some frozen peas, asparagus, and lemons that I could stand to use, so I thought this recipe would suit well. Yes, I did have to buy some ingredients, but it's all stuff that got used in this recipe. I resorted back to the Big Orange Book from Rachel Ray.

I didn't know until about 5 minutes ago that she has actually made this recipe on her daytime TV show! Thus, you can actually watch the video of her making this recipe to get a better idea of the recipe before you make it. However, when you are reading the recipe, I noticed she left out the lemon zest that appears in her cookbook. I think the lemon zest adds great flavor, and I would actually suggest more than appears in the recipe. It calls for 1 teaspoon of lemon zest to the mixture when it looks like this.

I think, personally, you should add 2 teaspoons, or even the zest of a whole lemon. It really adds a great tang to the ziti without being overpowering. For a baking pan, I would suggest you bake this recipe in a 9x13 pan because there is a large mass of food in this recipe; tasty food though :)

Enjoy this recipe because it is absolutely delicious! We ate it all!

Special Waffles

Homemade Waffles! Delicious and yum! I've made homemade waffles several times since the sous chef and I have been married, and I decided to make them again this Saturday since he was playing in a Golf Tournament that day.

For recipes like these, I often turn to one of my older cookbooks, which is the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. This time, I decided to make the Special Waffles.
Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, separated
1 1/4 cups milk
4 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons sugar

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl beat the egg yolks well, and add the milk and butter. Combine the flour and yolk mixture and beat until smooth. Beat the egg whites until stuff, but not dry. Slowly add the sugar, beating constantly. Mix a third of the beaten whites gently into the batter, then fold in the remaining whites very carefully. Spread 1/2 cup of waffle batter in the hot waffle iron. Bake until golden. Serve with syrup, butter, or whatever toppings you prefer!
Now, I know many people probably have an excess of waffles after a Sunday morning breakfast. We ate 4 and had 5 or 6 left over. What am I to do with that many extra waffles? Freeze them! How do you freeze them properly? Do as follows. Layer the waffles between wax paper as show below.

Then, light tuck the excess wax paper on the sides away and wrap all of the waffles in wax paper into a foil pouch. Tuck them away into the freezer. Remove waffles one at a time as needed. The wax paper will help you pull them away easily.

Enjoy!

Grilled Flank Steak

Every time I'm craving steak or red meat, I think this is ultimately what I'm craving. Delicious, think, crusty but tender on the inside, flavorful flank steak! For those of you not into red meat, this probably isn't your favorite post. Trust me, the 16 year old in me is looking at the current day me in disgust, I promise. Around that time I was taking medicine that totally averted me to red meat, but, as you can tell, time had turned me back around :)

As I began to browse for a recipe for a marinade for this steak, I quickly realized I was not willing to wait 3-8 hours on this steak to marinate! What was I to do?!

Enter the FoodNetwork.com :) I found a recipe that provided some inspiration. In addition to this recipe, I had recently bought some Chipotle Chile Pepper, and I thought this would be the perfect time to use it.

Wow, when I opened up this spice, talk about a sensory overload. This stuff smells AMAZING! I took it over to my sous chef and made him smell it, too, because it was that incredible.

Back to prepping the flank steak. I laid the flank steak on a cutting board, cut a few slits against the grain of the meat, seasoned it with salt and fresh cracked pepper, rubbed in E.V.O.O. on one side, sprinkled Oregano on the E.V.O.O. rubbed side, and then finished it off with a good sprinkle of the Chipotle Chili Pepper. I let that sit for about 30 minutes.

Using our handy dandy All-Clad Grill Pan (thanks Brandon and Gradee!), I was able to fit this whole flank steak into the pan and get it grilled :)

Yes, ideally this would be grilled outdoors, but that's not possible for us right now.

Nonetheless, for a good flank steak, you should get a good crust on the outside and cook this to medium or medium well. Having a pink center on this lovely piece of meat is what makes it so tasty, in my opinion.

How pretty does that look?! Don't worry, I'll tell you about those potatoes in the foil boat in a later post :)

Lemon Curd Pound Cake

Yum!

Ok, so, I know 'curd' doesn't sound all that appetizing, but if you like Lemon Bars, it's the SAME thing, I promise. Very tasty! I'm not one that loves pound cake, but something about this recipe caught my eye. It might have something to do with the fact that I had most of the ingredients ;)

My best friend (and adopt-a-sister ;) ), Kelly, gave me this cookbook for my birthday. I'm finally getting to making something from it, and this is the first recipe I chose!

Wait to prepare the Lemon Curd until the cake comes out of the oven so it will still be warm when spread over the cake.

Makes 10 to 12 servings

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract

Beat butter and shortening at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until the yellow yolk disappears.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt; add to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat batter at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla and lemon extracts. Pour batter into a greased and floured 12-cup tube pan.
Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from pan; carefully brush Lemon Curd over top and sides of cake. Cool completely on wire rack.

Lemon Curd

2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Stir together first 4 ingredients in a small, heavy saucepan; add egg, stirring until blended.
Cook mixture, stirring constantly, over low heat, 10 to 12 minutes or until mixture thickens slightly (cooked mixture will have a thickness similar to unwhipped whipping cream) and begins to bubble around the edges. Remove from heat. (The curd should be brushed immediately over cake, as mixture will continue to thicken as it cools.)

Doesn't this look delicious?! Grab a glass of milk and dive in :)

I had some additional batter that I made some mini-bundts with :)

If you'd like, you can follow along with the recipe here.

Spaghetti with Sauteed Chicken and Grape Tomatoes

Yesterday, I wanted to make something with items we had on hand. As I browsed some of my favorite blogs, I noticed that Gina had recently made this delicious and fresh spaghetti, and you can see her recipe here. The only thing that I was missing was some fresh basil, so I made an adjustment. I also divided the recipe in half since it was just the sous chef and I. Here's what I did:

Spaghetti with Sauteed Chicken and Grape Tomatoes

Servings: 2-3

1 skinless chicken breast half, diced in 1 inch cubes
cooking spray
1/4 tsp each of dried oregano and dried basil
kosher salt and fresh pepper
4 oz spaghetti (high fiber or low carb)
1 cups grape tomatoes, halved
3 cloves garlic, smashed and coarsely chopped
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp dried basil

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Season chicken generously with salt, pepper, oregano and basil. Heat a large skillet on high heat. When hot, spray with oil and add chicken. Cook about 3-4 minutes, until no longer pink. Remove chicken and set aside. Add pasta and cook according to package directions. Reserve about 1/2 cup pasta water before draining.

While pasta cooks, add olive oil to skillet on high heat. Add garlic and sauté until golden brown (do not burn). Add tomatoes, salt and pepper and reduce heat to medium-low. Sauté about 4-5 minutes.

When pasta is drained, add pasta to tomatoes and toss well. If pasta seems too dry, add some of the reserved pasta water. Add fresh basil and chicken and toss well. Serve and top with good grated cheese.

I love the way grape tomatoes taste once they've been sauted and cook. They become even sweeter! The sous chef and I really enjoyed this fresh and light spaghetti. Thanks Gina for sharing!

Julie & Juila

Oh my goodness, what can I say? This movie was fantastic! I'd been wanting to see this movie as soon as I heard it was coming out. I'm sure every food blogger did. That said, it was beyond my expectations. I've not read the book or ever seen Julia Child's cookbook (yes, I know, that's terrible), but this movie felt like my life on screen.

This scene specifically felt like the story of my life!!! You have dinner with your girlfriends, you look forward to it, but something is not quite right. Each of them seems to have this ...belief, er, attitude that you really don't know what you want in life or that you don't know what you are talking about. They don't give you their full attention, but you you keep asking questions wanting to know more about them. Oh my goodness. I felt like that was me on that screen! It was one of the first few scenes, and I looked at my husband (sous chef) as soon as it changed to the next scene. "Hunny, that's me!" Before I could finish, I could see it in his eyes. He knew what I was going to say, and he was thinking it, too.

Thus, this movie was one that I could really identify with. What's more important though was watching Julia learn to really cook and watch Julie learn Julia's techniques and recipes. I just wanted to be in the kitchen with them and joining in on the fun!

First, when Julie says she wants to write a food blog and wants to know what her husband thinks, it was like a scene in our household. Haha! She thinks it's a wonderful idea, he is like, "Sure, whatever you want." He's listening, but just thinking ...that's kinda weird. Haha! That's sort of of how it went in our household. Granted, I wasn't exactly coming up with a NEW idea though.

Seeing Julia always wanting to cook for friends and have them over was also a familiar scene in our household. I know our friends Kevin and Melissa could attest. We are frequently calling them over to have meals that I'm sure sound a little foreign! Haha! I love cooking for others.

I'm sure I could go on and on with the similarities, but I'm just glad I finally have a favorite movie. I've never had one! Until now, when people asked me my favorite movie, I'd sort of just name one off that came to my head that I liked; nothing I was really passionate about. Now....OMG, this is absolutely my favorite.

With all of this cooking excitement, I'm off to make something, head to grocery store for more ingredients, and then cook some more! OH...here's some links you might also enjoy :)

Julie Powell's Current Blog

Julie Powell's Blog that started it all

The first day of Julie Powell's blog :) After seeing this movie, it's exciting to read it.

The Book

Bon Appetit! Oh, and did you see it? What did you think?!

Chicken Saltimbocca

If you like salty foods, this is for you! I mean, hello...salt is in the name of the dish! After a family dinner to Maggiano's Little Italy recently, I decided that I had to try this dish on my own. While this recipe that I made was not the same as Maggiano's, it's still tasty. This is also a very easy recipe to make! Any food preparation, like chopping or slicing, was easily done while another part of the recipe was cooking. This is one of the easier recipes that I've made.

2 Tbsp. Fresh sage, chopped
2 oz. Prosciutto, thinly sliced (4 slices)
4 oz. chicken breasts, pounded
½ cup Seasoned breadcrumbs
1 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese
½ tsp. Kosher salt
¼ tsp. Black pepper (freshly ground)
½ oz. and as needed Olive oil, divided use
4 slices Provolone cheese
4 oz. White onion, ¾-in. dice (I just used one large onion)
1 oz. White wine

4 oz. Chicken stock
1 oz. Unsalted butter

1. Distribute ½ Tbsp. sage evenly over each chicken breast; place ½ oz. prosciutto over each chicken breast.

2. In small bowl, combine breadcrumbs, parmesan, salt and pepper. Lightly bread each breast with mixture on both sides.

3. Coat sauté pan with olive oil; heat over medium-high flame. Add chicken to pan; sauté until browned well, about for 3 minutes. Turn; continue cooking until browned and cooked through.

4. Add provolone cheese; cook until melted. Place on serving plate.

5. Wipe pan with paper towel. Add ½ oz. olive oil and onions to pan; cook until brown and caramelized, about 8 minutes.

6. Add wine; reduce by ¾. Add chicken stock; reduce by ½. Finish with butter.
7. Pour onion and sauce around chicken; serve immediately.